Montana’s Senate Bill 458 is an unassuming enough name. The contents, however, are somewhat problematic. The bill draws the binary of female and male based on the presence of XX or XY chromosomes. A spokesperson for lawmakers behind the bill have argued that the bill simply follows commonsense and biological logic for this binary and that the bill does not infringe on the rights of Montanans to identify as whatever gender they so choose, but not sex.
The commonsense argument on the surface makes sense. In biology many of us are taught that there is a clear binary between male and female, but people who have grown up between that binary, like myself, will tell you that sex is nowhere near that cut and dry. Intersex people are people who were born with a mix of primary and secondary sex characteristics, placing these people neither definitely male nor definitely female.
The Montanan intersex community has, from the first proposal of this bill, expressed extreme opposition to the binary it defines and how it affects their rights. By defining sex in this way, any protections for intersex people are by default rendered non-existent as, according to the bill, no one falls between the two. As the bill became a law, the intersex community, along with the transgender and two-spirit communities, geared up for a legal battle.
The lawsuit identifies Monatana’s governor and attorney general as defendants and seeks to have a judge rule the law unconstitutional in the eyes of the court.
As an intersex person myself who lived through North Carolina’s HB2, I feel for the intersex community of Montana. I remember being a 14 year old, always prepared to justify myself through biology, joking about how I would do it if I was confronted. I cannot imagine that stress being applied to every single aspect of my life. Current medical science is increasingly defining sex as a spectrum rather than a binary while legislation moves in the opposite direction. Education is necessary and destruction of the binary is necessary.
Article:
https://montanafreepress.org/2023/10/12/transgender-intersex-montanans-challenge-law-defining-sex-as-binary/